NASCAR 2019
2019 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series is the 3rd simulated season (71st annual) of professional stock car racing in the United States and the 47th modern-era Cup series season. The season begins at Daytona International Speedway with the Sprint Unlimited, the Can-Am Duel and the Daytona 500. The season will end with the Ford EcoBoost 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway. This season introduced major changes to the format of races and the points system. Most races are divided into three stages, with most races seeing the first two segments consisting of roughly a quarter distance with the third stage being half distance. The only points race exception is the Coca-Cola 600, which is split into 4 stages. A competition caution is held at the end of each stage, during which drivers may optionally take a pit stop before the restart for the next stage. The pit stop at the end of each stage is optional and teams risk losing track position if they have a slow pit stop or if teams elect not to pit. Additionally, pit road is closed once the leader of the race crosses the start-finish-line with 2 laps to go in the stage. The top 10 drivers at the end of the first and second stages receive championship points, awarded on a descending scale from 10 to 1.The overall winner of each race following the final stage receives 40 points, and the remaining drivers are awarded points on a descending scale from 35 for a 2nd-place finish, to 2 for 35th, and 1 for 36th through 40th. The winner of each stage also receives a "playoff point", and the overall winner receives five. Following the 26-race regular season, the 16 drivers with the most wins, with championship points as a tiebreaker, will qualify for the playoffs (re-branded from the "Chase for the Championship"). At this point the top 10 drivers on the championship points standings will be awarded additional playoff points; the regular-season champion will receive 15, second place will receive 10, and the remainder descending from 8 to 1. If a driver qualifies for the post-season, their championship points will be reset to 2000, and their banked playoff points will be added to this total. The playoffs will continue to use the existing multi-round elimination format; playoff points will be carried over through all but the final race of the season. Teams and drivers 'Chartered' 'Non-chartered' 'Changes' *Furniture Row Racing will expand to a two-car team with the addition of Erik Jones in the No. 77 *Circle Sport – Leavine Family Racing split following the 2016 season, with Circle Sport taking the charter. Jeffrey Earnhardt will run full season in car No. 33. Leavine Family Racing purchased the charter from the No. 7 Tommy Baldwin Racing team to continue running the full season in 2017 with car No. 95 with Michael McDowell. *JTG Daugherty Racing will expand to a two-car operation, leasing the charter from the No. 16 Roush Fenway Racing team. Chris Buescher will run full season in car No. 37. *Roush Fenway Racing will downsize to a two-car team, shutting down the No. 16 team. *HScott Motorsports will not run in 2017. Premium Motorsports, who sold its charter to Furniture Row Racing, would subsequently purchase the HScott No. 15 charter. *Go Fas Racing leased their charter to Wood Brothers Racing in order for the former charter to not be revoked. Immediately after, Richard Petty Motorsports would lease their No. 44 team charter to Go Fas Racing for 2017. *Richard Petty Motorsports announced that they would downsize to only the No. 43 Ford for the 2017 season. *TriStar Motorsports announced that it would return to the Cup Series full-time in 2017 after leasing a charter from Front Row Motorsports acquired from BK Racing, with the No. 72 Ford. Cole Whitt will be the full-time driver. *Clint Bowyer will drive for Stewart-Haas Racing in the No. 14 car as Tony Stewart retired at the conclusion of the 2018 season. *Brian Scott, who drove the No. 44 Richard Petty Motorsports Ford in 2018, announced that he was going to step away from NASCAR competition. *Greg Biffle, who had been with Roush since 1998, left Roush Fenway Racing at the end of 2018. Biffle ended up not getting a full-time ride for 2019. *Ty Dillon replaced Casey Mears in the No. 13 Germain Racing Chevrolet in 2019. *Matt DiBenedetto will drive the No. 32 Go FAS Racing Ford, replacing Jeffrey Earnhardt and various drivers. *David Ragan would return to Front Row Motorsports to drive the No. 38, for who he drove the No. 34 from 2012 to 2015. *Landon Cassill will replace Chris Buescher in the No. 34. *NASCAR medically cleared Dale Earnhardt Jr. to compete in competition again for 2019 after missing the last 18 races in 2018. Alex Bowman drove in place of Earnhardt in the Advance Auto Parts Clash. * Carl Edwards announced his immediate retirement from the sport. Joe Gibbs Racing announced that Daniel Suárez would replace Edwards in the No. 19 Toyota Camry. Season calendar Results and standings 'Races' 'Drivers' standings' *SW - Stage Wins *POP - Play-off Points 'Teams' standings' 'Manufactures' standings' Season Awards